I spent most of the month in bed. Mum stayed home while Jack looked after the Academy. I didn’t want to be on my own and Mum was better than no one. I went back to eating meals with my parents, though I couldn’t summon up much of an appetite. I blamed myself. I remembered dancing at the Billie Eilish concert, doing my best to catch Simon’s attention. I threw up a lot in the first week and thought I could be pregnant, but Dad got me three different pregnancy tests and they were all negative. I had a phone consultation with Dr Joyce. She assured me that it was a trauma response, and it would ease off as I physically recovered. The mental scars would take longer to heal. I felt like my body wasn’t my own, as if it was some filthy and worthless appendage that I was doomed to carry around. Women’s Aid, when I eventually called them at 5 a.m. one morning when I could not sleep, were very helpful. They assured me that what I was feeling about my body was a normal reaction to a sexual assault. They offered counselling and sent me a list of therapists.
On the work WhatsApp group, the word was that Simon had been mugged and was in hospital. They were organizing a collection, and then, a week later, he resigned with immediate effect. Everyone was shocked. I stayed out of those conversations. Daniel never texted me after that Friday night. I knew he was pissed off that we hadn’t turned up at Angelo’s and that I’d never called him over the weekend, but I was in no condition to talk, apologize or make small talk. I wished with my whole heart that I had gone to Angelo’s with him.
Mum and Dad were being weird. After the morning I came home and told them what happened, Mum did not want to talk about it and that night she disappeared. She had Dad andme worrying all night. She came back the next morning with some lame excuse but we knew she’d been drinking. We both ignored it. Dad tried his best to keep things normal and kept talking to me.
Eventually, I told him the full story of my infatuation with Simon, and the whole thing I had imagined with Gina. Dad looked furious. ‘Lucy, don’t you see? He was grooming you all along,’ and it wasn’t until he said it that I realized how true it was. Simon had been giving deliberately mixed signals the whole time. Excluding me from the concert invite and making me blame Gina. The lunches with her and then with me. There was a door on to his balcony in the living room. In fact, the telescope on the balcony was positioned closer to the living-room door. There was no need for him to bring me through his bedroom, except seduction, and when he acted shocked after I’d kissed him, it was all part of his plan. I’d been sick with worry, and I’d apologized to him in writing. How stupid I had been. He was setting me up, and he had the email to prove my complicity. But Dad scared him off and apparently put him in the hospital. I wondered about that other girl who had disappeared from the office. Daniel thought she’d had a crush on Simon, and he’d rejected her. Maybe he’d done the same thing to her. It stoked my anger.
A month after I was raped, I went back to work. Walking into the office felt like walking on a tightrope. I got to my desk and sat down. I had to remember to breathe in for four and out for eight until I stopped trembling. Several people welcomed me back and asked about my gallbladder operation. That was the story I used to explain my absence. I opened my emails. There was nothing from Simon. There was an email to say that Susan Cunningham would be leading the team going forward. I immediately felt better. The atmosphere was normal. At the end of the week,I subtly asked around about the girl who had left suddenly and got her name, Miranda Hayes. Her number and email address were still in the employee database. I didn’t know what I was going to do yet, like, you don’t ring someone up and ask if they’ve been raped. I had her number, though.
I started with a text.
Hi Miranda, I’ve been working for ComStat Holdings for 3 mths. Everyone says u were great when u were here. Did u work for Simon Perry? Heard u left before end of ur placement. Was that cos u got a better offer? Wd love to discuss if u have time?
Lucy Brady
I avoided Daniel even though I knew he was expecting an apology from me. I was too ashamed. Despite Dad and my therapist trying to force me to see it wasn’t my fault, if I had been a loyal friend to Daniel, it wouldn’t have happened. He blanked me in the break room, and I didn’t socialize with work colleagues again. I didn’t care what they thought of me. I had a lot of absences over the next few months. There were days when I couldn’t get out of bed. I knew I was jeopardizing my career, but I couldn’t help it.
62
Ruby
I was back at work at the Academy by the end of August. Jack was in rehearsals for a new Mark O’Rowe play. But Monday afternoons were Lucy’s therapy sessions and Jack insisted that I should collect her as she was likely to be at her most fragile then. So Lucy and I both left work early on Mondays. I made a big effort with her. Jack said we needed to wrap her in cotton wool.
I sat waiting in the car during her session, scrolling through Instagram. I lurked there mostly. My profile photo was a flower arrangement. I never commented or offered opinions, but it was interesting to see what other people were saying, and from time to time I had to see whathewas saying, Milo Kelly, the man whose life I ruined twenty-six years ago. He used this name on Instagram, which was clever under the circumstances, and I never saw any negative comments on his posts. Maybe he deleted them quickly or maybe everyone had forgotten. He hadn’t died of cancer. He was not a doctor, as he had hoped. When you googled his full name, Michael Joseph Kelly, and Boston rape, it came up in court records from 2000. Michaels usually became Mikes. There were no court records for Milo Kelly.
As far as I could tell, he’d been on Instagram since 2017. I knew that he’d been released early in 2013, after serving his thirteen-year term. Mostly there were photos of him among his colleagues in Billy’s Diner in downtown Boston. He wore thewhite uniform of a chef. Maybe he’d replaced his uncle. There were photos of fish he’d caught at Boston Harbor. It looked like he’d gone back to his South Boston origins. South Boston was different now compared to how it was back in the day. The whole area had been redeveloped. I wondered how he could afford to live there. Or maybe he didn’t? He looked old, though, so much older than I would have expected for a forty-five-year-old man. His curly sandy hair was shorn and white. His wrinkles were deep. He’d had it tough. It didn’t seem like he had a wife or significant woman in his life. I knew he’d never be able to find me since I went by my married name, Ruby Brady, or for theatre work, my stage name, Ruby Bean.
The urge to drink was back, and I had a feeling that morning I wasn’t going to resist it. I’d even parked in front of the off-licence beside the therapist’s office. I’d had a slip on the night that Lucy came home with her story of woe, which led to me waking up with Karl from Austin. I lied my way out of that one and Jack believed me because he wanted to. The shame consumed me, and I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened. I’d avoided my sponsor since.
I watched Lucy emerge from the counsellor’s office where I’d been parked up for fifteen minutes. Her shoulders were slumped.
‘Hello, darling! How are you?’
She didn’t reply. We travelled in total silence. I remembered that. It was how I had been when I was faking trauma. I knew her game.
I resisted going into the off-licence. Perhaps I could get through this day. I went through all the tools in my AA arsenal: ‘A day at a time. Play the tape forward.’ The last time could have been a slip but, if I drank today, it would be a relapse. Nearly fifteen years of sobriety down the drain.
When we got back, Lucy went straight up to her room, whileI prepared dinner. Jack came home and I immediately lied and told him that I was going to the theatre withSinéadand Jane that evening. That was that, decision made. The lie was told. Iwasgoing to drink. He asked me how Lucy had been after seeing her therapist.
‘No different,’ I said.
‘I know we’ve spoken about this, but –’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you think it would help her, Rubes?’
‘Jack, please.’
I shut down the conversation. We had been through this many times. I thought I had convinced him that Lucy needed me to be strong. She couldn’t see me as a victim too, I’d said.
During dinner with our silent daughter, the only thing I could think of was how soon I could get a drink. Jack asked about the show I was going to see, but I’d done my homework. I could name the actors, some of whom were friends. I knew the playwright as well.
‘I thought you didn’t like him?’ said Jack.
‘I don’t but I’m going to support Julie, you know she hasn’t been on stage in eight years. Apparently, she’s a nervous wreck.’
Lucy said, ‘That’s because she can’t act.’
